Diane Kondrat

Strange ‘Dream’ reflects coming reality

PWJW_Indy Reviews, Stage , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Lyle Belden

I remember when The Year 2000 was used to reference the future. Now it’s history.

In movies and literature – ever since the play that gave us the word “robot” – we imagined living side by side with technology. Now it autonomously delivers our packages. We hold conversations with computers.

From this world of tomorrow swiftly becoming today comes “Your Name Means Dream,” by Josè Rivera, presented by Jewish Theatre Bloomington.

Aislin (Diane Kondrat) lives alone in New York’s East Village. Every conversation with her adult son results in an argument, so her grandkids no longer visit. Out of concern for her advancing age, declining health, and the fact she washes down her prescriptions with Jack Daniels, he has sent her a state-of-the-art assistant, Stacy (Valerie C. Kilmer), which looks like a young woman but is a synthetic robot body with an AI brain.

“I am beautiful and creepy.”

After a wild (for them) and funny (for us) start, Aislin gradually comes to accept the presence of this talking “toaster” that says it wants to help her live a fuller life, soon seeing “it” as “her.” Taking on those improvements, especially losing the bottle of Jack, is another matter.  

Under the careful direction of Martha Jacobs, both actors take characters that we would have issues with and make them strangely charming.

During a talkback afterward Kondrat said, smiling, that this may be the most F-bombs she’s ever had to utter in a single script. While consistently profane, Aislin is not always angry. She does express frustration at her life, her son, the loss of her husband years ago, and herself, as well as her faux-human companion. However, moments of introspection slip through, as well as compassion at the prospect of actual loss. Those who are familiar with the addicted can see the contradictions of personality here. While her internal circuitry is biological, she is also subject to “glitching” in her own way.

Kilmer delivers an outstanding performance, never breaking character though as Stacy “learns” her movement becomes more fluid and she even picks up some of Aislin’s colorful language. With her perfect memory, we get a lot of callback references that work with the story. To be purely robotic, though not a trained dancer, Kilmer credits an acting class in which she was encouraged to practice isolating individual parts of her body, creating the notion that under-skin servos rather than smooth muscles control her movement. In preparing, she said she paid close to herself and considered how to remove the human element from each action or expression. This precision also shows in full-body character work as she mimics both the movement and voice of Aislin’s son when they communicate through Stacy’s phone app.

While there are some hilarious interactions, there is the underlying stress natural to a situation in which an AI-controlled machine that can bench-press hundreds of pounds and has no soul (the AOS [“Approximation of Soul”] upgrade comes in her next model, she says) is alone with a person with fragile body and mind. Aside from malfunction, there is a risk of hacking by the Skinjobs anti-robot organization.

Post-show discussion brought out various reactions to this engaging and thought-provoking play. While they address serious aspects of technology providing personal assistance for the elderly and differently abled, a process well under way in the off-stage world, there was also genuine affection for the comic interaction between the curmudgeon and the android. Some comments declared this a sort of 21st-century “Odd Couple.”

I personally saw the deeper questions posed by films such as “Blade Runner,” questions of identity and self, both among humans and those programed to emulate them. This was reflected in Stacy’s relating a sort of muscle-memory of a previous, very different, “life.” The policy of her maker, the tech corporation Singularity, is to completely eliminate its imprinted identity after use so that the unit can be refitted for whatever service the next customer wants. “I will not outlive you.”

Though Aislin is Irish-Croation and Catholic, and Stacy allegedly soulless, the board of Jewish Theatre of Bloomington felt this is an important work to bring to the public due to its examination of identity and humanity. As the human character puts it, “I contain multitudes, bitch!”

We are grateful for the opportunity to experience this.

Remaining performances are Saturday and Sunday, May 16-17, at the Waldron Rose Firebay theater, 122 S. Walnut St., Bloomington. They are technically sold out, but tickets might become available. Information at jewishtheatrebloomington.com.

Phoenix: Thinking of ‘The Children’

PWJW_Indy Reviews, Stage , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Lyle Belden

“The Children,” the title of a recent Broadway drama by Lucy Kirkwood, now at the Phoenix Theatre, doesn’t seem to tell us much. There are no youngsters on the stage — in fact, the trio we meet are all in their 60s. But this play understands that when we are grown, if we’re not thinking of our children and what we would do for them, we often indulge in that child still within each of us.

On the English coast, at a time that could be now, we are in the aftermath of a disaster much like the one that occurred several years ago in Japan: the triple-shock of earthquake, tidal wave and a crippled nuclear power plant.

Hazel and Robin (Donna Steele and Charles Goad) were among the scientists who engineered the reactor, now they live on the very edge of the irradiated zone. They are visited by past friend and colleague (as well Robin’s lover) Rose (Diane Kondrat). Old memories and issues are brought up, leading to moments of friction. But even more devastating is the issue of what happens next.

Directed by Phoenix artistic director Bill Simmons, this veteran cast give excellent, layered performances. In Hazel, Steele presents a fastidious character who prides herself on her maturity, while staying young as possible through healthy eating and yoga. Goad’s Robin seems fondly attached to the farm he is having to give up, but his daily trips to the barn have a darker purpose. Kondrat, once again a woman of many facets, gives us a Rose who has come a long way from her impulsive youth to a woman who has faced her mortality and must finally think outside herself. Their interactions throughout the play crackle with energy that rivals the broken facility on their horizon.

The larger questions surrounding nuclear energy and the environment stay in the background, as the issues at play here are more personal — dealing with reconciling out pasts, facing our ends, considering the next generation, and what we all must do to make our actions and lives meaningful. Sometimes it takes a disaster to make us truly think of The Children, and to force us to finally grow up.

Performances run through May 19 on the smaller Basile stage of the Phoenix, 705 N. Illinois St. in downtown Indy. Call 317-635-7529 or visit phoenixtheatre.org.

– – –

One last note (this did come up with an audience member at the preview performance): Though she is in the promotional photo, actor Jolene Mentink Moffatt does not appear in the play. The publicity picture was taken long before casting decisions were made, and aside from being not quite old enough for the roles, she was busy with her recent run on the Phoenix’s “Hotel Nepenthe.”

Phoenix drama where steel of resolve reaches its breaking point

PWJW_Indy Reviews, Stage , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By John Lyle Belden

“Sweat,” the Pulitzer-winning drama making its Indy premiere at the Phoenix Theatre, is a riveting mystery wrapped in a stark examination of recent events.

Set in a Pennsylvania Rust-Belt town, we first meet Jason (Nathan Robbins) and Chris (Ramon Hutchens) as they talk to their probation officer (Josiah McCruiston). The former best friends are released from prison in 2008, having served time for what they did eight years earlier. Neither has come to terms with their act; Jason literally wears the shame on his face.

Much of the rest of the play takes place in the year 2000, in a bar near a local factory where generations of men and women have worked good Union jobs. But the changing times, aided by economic factors such as NAFTA and the decline of labor unions, have cast an air of uncertainty over the town. One plant, where Chris’s father Brucie (Dwuan Watson) worked, shut out its workers and may never reopen. But his mother, Cynthia (Dena Toler), is doing fine at her workplace, where she and her friends Jessie (Angela Plank) and Jason’s mom, Tracey (Diane Kondrat), even consider going for a recently-opened management position.

Bartender Stan (Rob Johansen) used to work at the factory, but thanks to an on-the-job injury he settles for just selling his old friends drinks. He is helped by good-hearted Oscar (Ian Cruz), who patiently puts up with the patrons assuming he’s Mexican (his family’s Columbian) and that he’s an immigrant (he was born in the town, like everyone else).

As for individual performances, director Bryan Fonseca has once again brought out the best in a very solid ensemble, familiar to Phoenix audiences.

As we see the social and economic darkness descend upon these characters, and we get to know their feelings and fears as we watch the inevitable from our perspective of over a decade later, one haunting truth lingers in the background: Something very bad is going to happen to one of them. We never really know until the moment it happens, and at that point, we truly feel the dark side of 21st-century America.

For a look at the hot human aspects of cold economic realities, experience “Sweat,” through March 4 at 749 N. Park Ave. (the last mainstage show at this address before the Phoenix’s big move). Call 317-635-7529 or visit www.phoenixtheatre.org.